Per the CDC and the Vermont Department of Health, vaccines are the best tool we have to protect ourselves against COVID-19, especially from severe illness, hospitalization and death. Students are also highly encouraged to receive the COVID-19 booster(s) when eligible. Initial vaccination for COVID-19 is required for all students. If the Vermont Department of Health recommendations regarding masking become more restrictive, we may reinstate our masking policy to protect our community. We know that each of you will honor those individual masking decisions as you encounter friends, family, and members of the public who feel safer masking or who are safer masking because of health conditions.
Students, staff, and faculty should feel welcome and empowered to continue to mask if they feel more comfortable doing so. Please note that some specific majors will still require masks in educational settings due to the nature of the program (e.g., clinical and some lab settings). This includes all indoor spaces (except the health center) and campus vehicles. We appreciate your flexibility as we may adjust our policies to best position ourselves for a healthy academic year.įirst, what hasn’t changed: Students and employees should stay home if they have any symptoms of COVID-19, regardless of vaccination or close contact status. We continue to review our health and safety guidelines regularly. Michael Sirotkin of Bennington and Chittenden districts respectively.Ĭurrently, the bill is in the Health and Welfare Senate Committee after a first reading in the Senate.The health and safety of our community remains our highest priority. The lead sponsor of the bill is Bennington District Senator Brian Campion, along with co-sponsors Sen. “But as a general rule or general removal of this idea of religious exemptions for vaccination, yeah, I would be for that.” “I would hope that the bill would have some mechanism, some ability to go before a judge and plead a case,” he said. And that just weakens the idea of religion and faith,” he said, adding he believes that a provision for due process should be included in the bill. “It’s using religion, anybody’s religion, for their own personal needs and desires. Reverend Mark Pitton of the Sharon Congregational Church said a religious exemption can actually end up weakening religion on the whole. Because it goes all against the precepts of what religions are,” Harty said.
“There is and should be no such thing as a religious exemption for something that affects all of us and public health, health in general. Pastor Tom Harty of the United Church of Bethel, said the virus is something that affects everyone, and public health should be the top consideration. “Freedom of religion is not a freedom to violate other people’s rights,” McCormack said.Īt least some local leaders of Christian congregations agree with McCormack and have said they support the bill as well. The bill, according to McCormack, is a public health matter “that doesn’t change with the motives of the person creating the threat to public health.” If this bill is passed, individuals could still be exempt from vaccination requirements if a health-care practitioner certifies that a specific vaccine would be detrimental to that person’s health. That statement allows for an exception to be made to the rules requiring children to be inoculated against an array of diseases. The law currently allows for a parent or guardian to provide a signed statement to the school or childcare facility that states their religious beliefs are opposed to vaccination. “Kids have a right to go to school and that right to go to school would include the right to go to a reasonably safe school,” McCormack said. Windsor District Senator Dick McCormack, who sponsored the bill, said the bill centers squarely on the right to safely attend school. Here in the White River Valley, both clergy and legislators say they support the measure. (Herald File / Tim Calabro)Ĭhildren and adults in schools and childcare facilities would not be able to use religion to avoid vaccination requirements under a new bill being considered in the State House. Dick McCormack listens in during a 2019 legislative breakfast in Bethel.